A half-assed movie blog

Latest Movies: July 1 – August 12

Netflix summary: Exploring humankind’s unsettling capacity for evil, this darkly twisted drama plays upon the power of supernatural fears and everyday horrors.

★★★★ This show hooked me like a sea bass. I don’t tend to watch horror movies but the fact that it was in serial televised format intrigued me. Interestingly, each season begins with a new setting and new characters while keeping mostly the same cast. Jessica Lange kills, both literally and artistically.

Her

Netflix summary: In this sci-fi romantic comedy starring Joaquin Phoenix, love comes to a lonely young writer in the sleekest of packages when he finds himself falling for the advanced operating system he purchased to run his life.

★★★ An interesting look at how technology is redefining how we emotionally connect.

It’s a Wonderful Life

Netflix summary: It’s a wonderful film. Frank Capra’s inverted take on A Christmas Carol stars Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, a good man who’s spent a lifetime giving up on his dreams in order to keep life in his small town humming. When a guardian angel named Clarence finds a despondent George poised to jump off a bridge, he shows George what life would’ve been like had he never been born.

★★★★ We’ve all seen the ending to this movie whether we’ve wanted to or not. This being the first time I’ve actually watched the movie from start to finish, I found myself weeping at the end. It deserves its place in all the best movie lists.

Doomsday Bunkers

As the leader of Deep Earth Bunker, Scott Bales builds one-of-a-kind bunkers for eccentric clients who are preparing for the end of the world.

★★★ Mildly interesting look at a quirky engineer who has the enviable task of running his own business making bunkers for people who are totally batshit. This show lead me to….

Doomsday Preppers

★★★★ This show isn’t actually on Netflix…so I had to turn to the shady world of streaming television from sketchy websites. During the length of each episode, National Geographic follows three different #preppers and their efforts to ready themselves for when “shit hits the fan.” They store massive quantities of food, arm themselves to the teeth, and warn their children that roving bands of vandals will one day break into their house, steal their food, and rape them all…unless they’re ready for it. God I love crazy people. The strangest part of the show, in my opinion, is that after the preppers reveal all of their food stores, weapons, inventions, and paranoid fantasies, National Geographic rates their preparedness and offers them suggestions for how to be even crazier. It always sounds something like “while the experts agree that having five years worth of food in your basement will prepare you for an impending pole shift, they think you should have a better security system and more gallons of water.”